Kicking and Screaming

So anyway, a few of you have already noticed that I'm now the proud owner* of a Facebook page. Like my erstwhile MySpace page, it was not my idea nor did I set it up - the lovely and gracious Rogue in both cases decided that I needed one.

I don't expect to do much with it as the format is not really conducive to anything but saying Hi and "Wow, how about those Vikings?"  But those things need to be said, too.

That is all.

* Owner? Author?  Publisher?  I'm not sure what title is bestowed upon those with a page named after them.

Forget Bo

It's Obama who knows football:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series, the Justice Department said in a letter Friday to a senator who had asked for an antitrust review...

"The administration shares your belief that the current lack of a college football national championship playoff with respect to the highest division of college football ... raises important questions affecting millions of fans, colleges and universities, players and other interested parties..,"

Hatch, a Utah Republican, was steamed that his home state team was deprived of getting a chance to play for the title last year.

In all fairness to Obama and the Democrats, this issue is being pushed by a conservative Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah. But it does raise the question: is there anything, anything at all, which the Republicans and Democrats can agree is simply not a matter for the federal government to get its meddling hands into?

I'm pretty sure that when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, they had no intention of delegating to the national government responsibility for deciding the mechanism whereby college football teams are designated the best in the country.

But hey, that just goes to show how much smarter modern politicians are than those dead ones.

Just answer the five questions

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has come up with a series of "gotchas" to drive a wedge between the GOP and the Tea Partiers*. While Politico says that a "No" answer means trouble in the primaries, I don't see how that's any more troublesome than a "Yes" answer in certain cases:

1) Do you believe that Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen? 

Yes.

2) Do you think the 10th Amendment bars Congress from issuing regulations like minimum health care coverage standards? 

Yes. That is exactly what it does. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Are "minimum health care coverage standards" delegated to the United States by the Constitution? No? Then they are reserved to the states and Congress has no right to legislate on them. See how easy that is?

3) Do you think programs like Social Security and Medicare represent socialism and should never have been created in the first place? 

No and Yes. Whether they are "socialist" depends on your definition of socialism. Mine is production-oriented, and since SocSec produces nothing, it is neither capitalist nor socialist.  What it is is plunder, the forcible taking of money from one person** to give to one more politically favored.  And yes, it should never have been created.

4) Do you think President Obama is a socialist?

No, at least not a classical Socialist (Laborers ought to control the means of production via various mechanisms), because he at least gives lip service to the idea that GM will make better cars as a private company than as the Department of Auto Manufacturing. But he is not a capitalist, either, allowing bad corporations to die so their capital can be more efficiently used by others.  He's a progressive in the mold of Wilson, TR, and George W. Bush, a position that combines the worst features of both systems.  

5) Do you think America should return to a gold standard?

No, but.  There's a line in Eight-Legged Freaks where, after Chris McCormick punches out the mayor, Deputy Pete disburses the crowd by saying, "Folks, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."  We are in the same position. We cannot stay here, issuing and leveraging paper money that represents debt, because it leads to a debt sink and general default. There is no escape from our current position except to go down the drain, and we are circling it. And yet we cannot go back to the gold standard as it was - the government promising $x of dollars for an ounce of gold. So long as the government insists on gunning the economy for political reasons, no gold standard can last because the government will not keep its promises. So we need a new system that combines the discipline of gold without relying on the integrity of politicians to make it work***. 

See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

* Of which I am neither, I just thought it would be fun to answer the questions.
** In this case the young and foolish are plundered on behalf of the old and crafty.  Or put another way, Social Security allows young women to find their meaning in the workplace so old men can find theirs on the golf course.
*** I know, good luck there.

This is why I use AdBlock Plus

Just More Words

And you won't remember them anyway:

As President Obama prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address...even admirers have a hard time remembering what he actually says.

Ted Widmer, who edited an anthology of political speeches for the Library of America, praised President Obama for his "masterful" style, but could not cite a specific line the president said. Similar observations were made by Jeff Shesol, David Frum and Harry C. McPherson, who wrote speeches for presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson, respectively.

"The speech he made in Cairo — I remember the intelligence, the breadth and the reasonableness," McPherson says. "But I can't tell you — and this is one of the shortcomings of the kind of speech he makes — I can't quote anything, or cite anything, off the top of my head."

All manner of reasons are given for the fact that people come away from an Obama speech feeling good about the speech without being able to remember exactly why. Perhaps it's because Obama is so smart, so detailed, so wonky.  Perhaps it's because we voters don't understand the details or don't care.  They are all wrong.

Obama speeches are an attempt to "connect" with voters, like Bill Clinton speeches.  They are not an intellectual exercise but an emotional one, with words geared to bypass reason rather than to engage it. Obama speeches are unrememberable because they are cotton candy for the brain.

This effect does not arise because Obama's speeches are poorly written; they're not. It's not that they're poorly delivered; they're not*. It's that they are not connected to anything real in any way, shape, or form; they have no substance and sweetly and stickily melt away as soon as you try to bite down on them.

For example, tonight Obama will (likely) propose the same kind of budget "freeze" that he criticized his election opponent for**. It will affect a mere one-sixth of the budget, and the very part that is Congress' playground.  It will save about as much this year as Obama will announce in new spending - $4b for education and $8b for trains in Tampa. In short, even in the unlikely event such a freeze gets enacted***, its purpose has already been undercut, its beneficial effects frittered away in the very same speech. The only 'good' is that budget hawks get to hear what they want, educators get to hear what they want, Tampa residents get to hear what they want.

Obama will give a speech tonight that a lot of people will watch, and they will come away from it with feelings. Some people will feel good, some people will feel bad.  But almost no one will remember what the President said. The real reason is that the words are simply not worth remembering.

* the professionals say he is a good speaker, and I defer to their expertise. I personally find Obama mind-numbingly dull to watch and worse to listen to. Some people find that soothing, I guess. I'd rather have a rum and coke.
** You know, that guy from Arizona. Not Goldwater, the old one.
*** Candidate Obama was exactly correct when he said they never make it through congress.

Just words

President Obama has a new mantra. Let's see if we can find it:

So long as I have some breath in me, so long as I have the privilege of serving as your President, I will not stop fighting for you... I won't stop fighting to bring back jobs here... I won't stop fighting for an economy where hard work is rewarded.  I won't stop fighting... I'm not going to stop fighting... I'll never stop fighting... I'm not going to stop fighting... I won't stop fighting... I won't stop fighting... That's why I'm fighting... I won't stop fighting.... I won't stop fighting... And I'm going to keep on fighting... But we are also going to fight... there will be more fights ahead... We're having a fight... But it's going to be a fight... I don't mind having that fight...

I don't know whether to laugh or, well, laugh. Who writes this crap?

It's not just that Obama is no populist, neither a 21st century William Jennings Bryan defying the cross of gold* nor a Teddy Roosevelt dripping testosterone all over the stage. It's that when you look at Obama, you don't think "fight." Never. He's not an imposing man, but a tall, skinny, gangly constitutional lawyer-looking man who can't even bowl.  Seriously, who is afraid of a David Souter kicking their ass?

When Obama stands up there and says**, "fight, fight, fight," he looks like the scrawniest fourth grader in the class, mouthing off secure in the knowledge that his friends are going to "hold him back" lest he actually really end up in a fight. It's laughable and these people ought to know better.

I realize the White House is seeking a new theme; the Brown election in Massachusetts has shaken them to the core. Even they know Coakley was not as bad a candidate as everyone says***, that her loss exposed something very, very wrong in the Democratic approach thus far, and that they have squandered their entire first year - the best opportunity they'll likely ever have to do anything meaningful. They see a baby seal hunt coming in 10 months and are desperately seeking some new approach that might head that off, at least a little.

But this theme is not it. Obama is not really going to fight anybody, and everybody knows it.

* "If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."
** reads.
*** Nor Scott Brown as good.

Make it a rogue

So anyway, over the weekend I polished off Dragon Age for the second time, this time as a Circle Mage*. While playing a mage resulted in a far more powerful character - Logain did not even lay one shot on me - and easier adventure, there is still nothing more fun than playing a rogue.

* Plus I played both the "sacrifice Alistair" and "Ultimate Sacrifice" endings.

Quick, act surprised

The world is failing to run out of ice:

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders...

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action."

The most amusing-yet-overlooked thing about the latest admission of scientific fraud was not that it was completely made up*, nor that it was done for political rather than scientific purposes*, but that it won a Nobel Prize. If there was any doubt left that the Nobel committee** is as dead set on trashing Albert's reputation as the Vikings are on losing championships, those doubts ought to be laid to rest.

At this rate, receipt of a Nobel prize will probably soon be followed automatically by a punitive fine or a few dozen hours of community service.  

* We already knew that.
** at least this Nobel Committee. My understanding is that there are different committees for different prizes.

Thoughts on the game

It's not as complicated as the sportswriters make out, with their detailed matchups and their maths:

Both teams can score a ton, from anywhere on the field, by land or by air, at any time. They are the two top scoring teams in the league.

Both teams have huge potential holes, having been outclassed, outplayed, outshined by teams considered far their inferiors. But both teams have laid the hurt on some very good other teams, too. Both teams won playoff games last week by 31 points.

Prior matchups don't matter a bit: The Saints killed the Cardinals who killed Minnesota. The Vikings killed the Cowboys who killed New Orleans.

The Vikings played terrible on the road in December, the Saints terrible at home the same time.

So who wins? I don't know. But only because I'm not sure whether it's a loss this week or two weeks from now that can inflict the most suffering on Vikings fans.

Interchangeability

Nerdy Harry has a strange problem:

Amidst the voter anger at Wall Street and Washington, D.C., ABC News has learned that the Senate Democratic leadership isn't sure there are enough votes to re-confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

It might be recalled that unlike TurboTax Tim Geithner, Helicopter Ben is not an Obama Original but a holdover from the Bush administration, foisted on the nation by El Presidente Pasado and supported wholeheartedly by a majority of Republicans*. So you have to wonder: why is it that Obama and the Democrats are so concerned about re-appointing and confirming him?

The easy answer is that Bernanke is already a tame lion and Obama simply has no interest in breaking a new chairman to his will.  One almost as easy is that the differences between Obama and Bush are in this case, as in so many others, difference of form without substance; Bernanke fits the Obama administration because he fit the Bush administration so well**.  The third is that the Goldman Fed owns Obama like it owned Bush, so Obama appointing Bernanke is the equivalent of a 100-lb woman "walking" a great dane. She may hold the leash, but he's walking because he chooses to walk.

Whatever the reason, it is beginning to dawn on more and more Republicans, as they line up against Bernanke or at least fail to fall into line for him, just how mercilessly and in how many ways they were tricked by their erstwhile leader.

* Only a few right-wing nuts actually had problems with Bernanke. As usual, their concerns turned out to be justified. 
** Shiela Bair at FDIC is another good example of the phenomenon. After all, a regulator with the audacity to take out a million dollar mortgage from a company while working on its taxpayer bailout would be welcome in nearly any administration.

Crowning Governor Switchback

I think we've heard this song before:

TOPEKA — A Democratic state senator is considering a run for governor, and party leaders said Wednesday that his past victories over Republican incumbents would make him a serious challenger.

But the Kansas GOP's chairwoman doubted anyone could defeat the presumed Republican nominee, U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback...

"There already is such incredible momentum behind Sam Brownback that no one else stands a chance," she said.

No one else stands a chance. Martha Coakley, call your new senate office, please.

That's not to say that Senator Switchback is not the odds-on favorite or that he will not be sailing with a HUGE Republican tailwind by fall. And it's not even to say that, even though I absolutely refused to even think about support him for president, that I would not vote for him for governor. I might, for the single reason that whomever becomes the next governor will be wholly unable to build taxpayer-funded monuments to himself*. Therefore it matters little whom the next governor is**. 

It's still January, far, far too early to publicly crown him the victor. Even though half of the party chairwoman's job is to make a public case that her claimant ought to be coronated rather than elected, she's going to look awfully stupid if some unknown state senator ends up wearing Sam's crown in November. 

* The state's dwindling revenues seriously bind the hands of the next governor, no matter which party gets the mansion. Aah, the golden chains of Recession.

** Besides, my major complaint about Brownback was that he voted against conservative principles in order to give Bush a political victory***. It's not that he's conservative or not conservative, it's that he's unprincipled, a squish crusading as a conservative. But I've seen worse.

*** Fat lot of good it did either Bush or his "permanent Republican majority."  It pleases me greatly to watch Democrats insist on making precisely the same mistake to give Obama a political victory on health care. At least Obama's people aren't throwing around "legacy" yet.

The joy of grandchildren

via email:

Simon started to cry and Noah came running down the hall and put his nose in the corner.

Still not sure what it was that he did, but the important part is that HE knows...right?

Takes after his mother, for sure.

Haven't commented on Massachusetts yet

But what is there to say?

(CNN) -- Massachusetts goes to the polls Tuesday for a special election to fill Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat, which could determine the fate of the national Democratic agenda, including health care plans.

Losing the seat would strip Democrats of their 60-seat majority in the U.S. Senate and give Republicans enough votes to block the comprehensive health care overhaul bill that President Obama is championing...

It's  pretty good system that keeps Democrats, even with a 40-seat majority in Congress, an 18-vote* majority in the Senate, and the presidency, from passing something as idiotic as this healthcare bill.  If only gridlock could get us out of Afghanistan and maybe Korea.

Conservatives are all over Scott Brown as if he's the second coming of Sarah Palin.  What do you bet they hate the guy in 2 years? I mean, he's a Massachusetts Republican, how conservative can he be?

Should the GOP win this election, Olympia Snowe will become the most powerful person in the senate.  Right now, conservative Democrats are able to demand huge payoffs for holding their place in the line. But when the Dems need a Republican, Snowe can set her own price, and it may be very high indeed.

CNN political analysts know nothing about politics.  For example, Gloria Borger complains that, "Impending domestic financial disaster, a national health care crisis or threats of terror at home get no such bipartisan commiseration or leadership" as that of Bush and Clinton helpinglending their faces in Haiti. I would have to ask the Senior Political Analystess how she explains the existence of TARP and the Patriot Act**? Perhaps they were passed because there were no problems in America at the time and Congress was just bored.

Democrats starting to jump on Martha Whatsername even before the vote is lostcounted is pure win. As I wrote about 3 years ago, the Democrats are an Ouroboros Party; they cannot rule without devouring themselves***.

For the past year they have enjoyed a majority so large that they could have, for the entire past year, passed any legislation they wished without the need of a single opposition vote.  How did they do?

* effectively 20 votes, since both independents vote with them.
** not that they are good responses - Congress is often at it absolute worst when legislation passes in response to an "emergency" - but they were bipartisan.
*** that does leave the question open as to whether *anyone* can rule, i.e. if the US in its current form is governable.  If it's not, then the best we can hope for is not a specific election result, but a peaceful dissolution.

The Crying Game

Keith Brooking plays it well:

MINNEAPOLIS -- Tempers flared Sunday at the Metrodome after Minnesota's final touchdown of a 34-3 playoff victory over Dallas as Cowboys linebacker Keith Brooking sprinted toward the Vikings' sideline, taunting* coach Brad Childress and later calling the late score "classless."

Vikings nose tackle Pat Williams, meanwhile, said Brooking was lucky to escape the Minnesota sideline in one piece.

"We don't care what Keith Brooking says," Williams said. "He was about to get his ass whupped on our sideline over there... We take no pity on them. Do they expect us to? I don't care about no Brooking. He can say whatever he wants to say."

As I mentioned last week, the Vikings finally seem to have acquired that missing element that separates those teams that play in February from those that don't.  It's not Favre**, it's the drive to put teams away with finality, the desire to finish well. It's the insatiable hunger to send other teams packing, not with the thought that one play could have changed the outcome, but with a "What the hell just happened?" look on their faces.  The past two weeks the Vikings have shown the aggression that is absolutely necessary if they are going to win next week***.

Last time the Vikes were accused of running up the score, I protested that they had very good reason: they had the worst passing defense in the league and so even leading by 4 touchdowns with half a game to play, the thing was not settled.  Today they probably did run it up; they didn't need to score with 2:00 left to put the Cowboys away.  So what?  Is it worse as a professional to have a better team beat you as badly as they can and show you where you stand, or to beat you and then lie down, a taunt that says, "We don't even need to try"?  This is the bigs, boys; suck it up and use it for tackling fuel next season.

UPDATE: Go Jets! With the Vikes and Jets one game from playing for it all, PiffordT's gotta be coming apart at the seams...

* taunt? That's a funny word to use when you're losing by 4 touchdowns.
** though I'll confess that helps no little bit
*** Vikings fan that I am, I do not expect they will win. Win or lose, I also don't expect a close game.

Who did the US make a pact with

That Pat Robertson is still on TV?

The White House has dismissed as "stupid" comments by evangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson suggesting that quake-struck Haiti was cursed...

Mr Robertson, an 80-year-old former presidential candidate, made the comments on Wednesday on his programme, "The 700 Club".

"They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal," the televangelist said during the broadcast. 

It's been a while since I've had the privilege of doing a Pat Robertson post, not because he's failed to fail recently, but because unless it rises to the point where the White House feels the need to comment*, I seldom see it.  I don't watch TV preachers and never have.  And there's hardly a reason to start now.

I am amused that Danny Glover's assertion (at 2:00 and following) that this earthquake is a result of the failure of the Copenhagen Summit did not attract the same lofty attention as did Robertson. But I can't decide if the reason for that is because a) Robertson is blaming the disaster on a far less politically-correct deity than Gaia Politica, or b) everyone already knows Glover is a lunatic. To be honest, I lead toward a), as without a doubt Robertson is a lunatic as well.

UPDATE: That's not to deny that Robertson is onto a real problem. Before Haitian independence in 1804, the nation was a French slave colony and the wealthiest such colony in the Caribbean. 200 years later, it is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. So what happened?  Are they cursed? Other than living in a hurricane zone and atop a fault line, I don't think they are cursed any more than anyone else.

Their major problems are not political**, but cultural. Those problems are essentially a race-based caste system and a voodoo-based religious system, neither of which encourage industry, savings, work, or social order***. They are no better off (and no worse off) than their African cousins in Congo or Benin, nor particularly different than the old Germanic tribes who lived off what they could hunt in the Teutoburg Forest or steal from the Romans. And so long as their culture remains what it is, their island will remain what it is.

Perhaps this disaster will create enough of a jolt to allow a significant break from the past.  If not, Haiti will remain poor, depressed, violent, overpopulated, and over-subject to the next natural disaster that comes along. No amount of aid can change a poor nation into a rich one, only internal order and hard work can do so.

* Perhaps we have another beer summit in our future?

** Though they have and have had significant political problems. The existence of a successful republic led by ex-slaves so near the American South created a hostile American foreign policy vis-a-vis Haiti from the very start. That did not cause their nation to fail, but it sure didn't make it any easier for them to resist French, English, and Spanish hostility.

*** Slavery provided these things - thus its prior prosperity - via the whip and at a tremendous human cost. Not only was the native population wiped out completely, the brutality of Caribbean slavery was such that, unlike in the American South, blacks never established families or a self-replacing population under that system. They were worked to death too quickly. Haiti may have been rich, but Haitians have always been miserable.

Mark Parkinson's disease

It's apparently the inability to see contradictions:

The first tax increase would be to raise cigarette and tobacco taxes from their current levels of 79 cents per pack to the national average of $1.34.

“Not only will this allow us to raise revenue, it has the added benefit of reducing teen smoking,” Parkinson said...

In addition to raising taxes on cigarettes and tobacco, Parkinson also proposed a statewide smoking ban that would “ramp up our fight against cancer.”

“Let me be very clear. I'm not proposing that we pass a watered-down smoking ban,” Parkinson said. “I do not want legislation that the tobacco industry writes, full of loopholes and not a real ban. Seventy-five percent of Kansans want a real public smoking ban, and I am asking you to give that to them.”

I've really said nothing but nice things about Governor Parkinson thus far, but I expected that it would not be long before the Democrat managed to do one thing Democrats consistently do well: propose simultaneous ideas that cancel out any benefit either of them might have*. In this case, the contradiction is mentioned by Parkinson without the slightest hint that he understands the real-world effects of what he's proposing.

Kansas' budget has a $400m hole, so he proposes a tobacco tax to fill it (or part of it).  At the same time, he proposes a new law that would reduce tobacco use - significantly enough to "ramp up a fight against cancer" - the very activity he's counting on to fill the hole.

I suppose he expects he can have it both ways: teens will not smoke**, people will not smoke in public, tobacco use will be reduced enough to make a meaningful change in people's health - and yet the tax revenue will increase by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. I wonder if there is something in the DNA of politicians which makes them unable to see the likely rather than just the desired consequences of their ideas.

If Parkinson wants to count on tobacco revenue to fund state government, he needs to take the opposite tack: make every public building a mandatory tobacco-use area.  Pipe, cigar, chew, whatever: if you want to use public facilities, you'd better be filling the public coffers while you do so***.  I can't say that such a plan would help the fight against cancer all that much****, but it would at least promote activity consistent with its proclaimed purpose.

* Assuming, of course, that taxes and bans are good ideas. They're not, usually. But since that's what politicians spend so much of their lives contemplating, let's pretend just for a moment that they are.
** Or at least they won't sneak to Missouri which at just .17/pack has the lowest tobacco taxes in the nation.
*** and no growing your own. That's cheating.
**** On the other hand, it would go a long way toward fixing Social Security's demographic issues.

The proper way to bribe a guard

Worse than global warming

Vlad the Impaler has colder problems to worry about:

NOVO-OGARYEVO, January 11 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has urged power engineering specialists to fix energy failures without delays...

“In addition to the global warming challenges, we need to address 'global cooling' effects and to do so promptly,” he said. 

I wonder how many people have thought about the marginal effects of global warming versus global cooling on the food production of countries like Russia, Canada, and even the US.  There are enormous tracts of potential farmland that lie right on the bubble: too much cooling and they are taken out of production altogether, a little more warming and they can support a harvest or maybe even two.  Just imagine the food production you could get if Siberia or Saskatchewan had an extra degree Celsius or another 5 weeks of growing season.

I remember a book that David Craft gave me a few years back, sort of an "end of the world and the happy-go-lucky days that followed*," which featured a pretty sweet comet that hit the earth and brought about an immediate ice age.  Russia's response was to nuke China, because they knew their population would have to move south en masse and they wanted to make sure a billion troublesome Chinese peasant farmers wouldn't get in the way of that necessity.

Too much global cooling has always been worse on global food production than too much warming; the last great period of cooling** has been called "The Calamitous 14th Century," and not just because of the 100 Years War or the Black Death. Those calamities, as bad as they were, simply exacerbated the troubles of a few dozen years where the best news about food production problems was that there were a lot fewer mouths waiting to consume it. Warming, on the other hand, has tended to bring about Viking ravages, which is not too bad so long as you're not a Cowboys fan.

* I think it was called "A Hitchhiker's Guide to Lucifer's Hammer."
** right at the end of the Medieval Warm Period.

Playing the finger you're dealt

The GOP finds the outrage card doesn't trump:

Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Mr. Reid should step down, calling his comments "embarrassing and racially insensitive."


"It's difficult to see this situation as anything other than a clear double standard on the part of Senate Democrats and others," Mr. Cornyn said.

The GOP is taking completely the wrong tack here. Yes, there's a double standard, and they are absolutely correct that had Reid been a Republican he would have been hounded out.  But that's only because the GOP has proven willing to hound their own leadership out for fear of being called racist. The Dems could not have gotten rid of Sir Trent; all they could do is scare the GOP into tossing him overboard.  The GOP needs to realize that such racist outrage is completely manufactured and simply dismiss it out of hand. No one but professional race warriors take it seriously, and they have literally nothing to offer any Republican.

Instead, they need to figure out how to make Harry not a martyr but a laughingstock.  The guy is already on the ropes in his home state: he cannot survive not being taken seriously. What Harry said is particularly fit for mockery because he's apologizing for speaking the obvious, for getting "caught" noting that Obama is black-but-not-too-black*. And he's "mortified" about something he said two years ago that just happens to be coming out in a book.

Every Republican who is asked** about Reid ought to support him wholeheartedly, saying something to the effect that, "Though I didn't vote for the guy as Senate leader, Harry Reid has shown again and again the kind of leadership Democrats can be counted on to provide this great country. He's a perfect symbol of the Democratic party, and I would be shocked - SHOCKED - if they were to remove him for getting caught being everything Democrats demand of their leaders." Damning with faint praise has been known to work wonders.

* Where he was wrong was in saying that Obama could speak with a "negro-dialect" if he chose to.  Somehow I doubt that.
** and there are plenty of ways to make sure you get asked.

Hardly an accident

Those who understand the real purpose of regulation* were the only ones unsurprised:

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The AIG bailout isn't going away, much as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner might like it to.

The $180 billion fiasco was back in the news Thursday, after Bloomberg reported that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York prodded the troubled insurer at the end of 2008 to withhold some gory details of its bailout deal from the public.

The instructions came at a time when Geithner, who is now the Treasury secretary, led the New York Fed...

The article notes a couple of other cases where government regulators gave businesses assistance - and in some cases orders - to not disclose information, to not follow the law, to not tell the truth. But it fails to draw the correct conclusion: this is not a system problem, but what the system is designed to do.

Regulation is not designed to protect the public, nor is it designed to make industries more competitive. Regulation is a system whereby industries publish rules for themselves** but rely on the government to free them from following them if it would be expensive or embarrassing.  In exchange, government agents gain power to "manage" the economy, jobs for underling regulators and bureaucrats, and board seats at large companies when their term in office expires. The result is a system which uses taxpayer money to protect large companies and politically-connected industries from failure.

In the rare case such companies manage to lose money anyway, you can expect 2 things: bailouts and more regulation:

"A lack of governance was responsible for the US housing bubble and not monetary policy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke declared as he addressed the American Economic Association yesterday in Atlanta."

The rule is that it's never government power or decisions that causes crises. It's a lack of government power. And taxpayer money.

* and yes, this includes Geithner and Bernanke.
** rules that by their very design make it nearly impossible to enter a "regulated" industry, and thus protect the current players from competition. If you don't believe me (or don't believe banks are regulated) just open a bank and start taking a few deposits.

I wanted to be Wally

I guess no idea can be new

Until it has a clever name:

In a world of increasing uncertainty and challenges to their individuality, an increasing number of men are finding the best way to deal with the pressure of modern society is to go back to the cave. One of the hottest trends in domestic reconfiguration is the concept of the “Man Cave” – a designated space in or around the home where a man can seek refuge from worldly or domestic distractions and immerse himself in personal indulgence.

My dad has a little building at the cabin full of radio equipment to which he has been known to occasionally retreat. PiffordT has a computer room done in glorious green and white, with Jets paraphernalia right down to the light switch plate. Before the boys moved out, my office was at our bookstore in Fort Scott and not only contained my desk, but all my books, my ceramic Kensington Runestone, my Vikings helmet and my cheesehead*. Man caves all, and have been for years, though they were never called that.

I even remember taking a tour thorough an old mansion in Duluth called the Glensheen. Absolutely stunning, it was rather the cornerstone of a whole array of such homes right on the shoreline of Lake Superior**. But as a kid there was always one room that confused me: the Smoking Room. I thought it was weird that people would all gather into a single room to smoke, and that a whole room might be set aside to perform such  mundane activity. That was until I discovered only men were allowed to enter the Smoking Room. The Smoking Room was a man cave, 1905 edition.

Now either we men are all ahead of the social curve***, or the writer of this particular article is trying to create a social trend where a social reality has always existed. I leave that up to the reader to decide. But I shall be rather depressed if the discovery of the man cave - by naming it - leads to its suppression via law and social coercion. You think I might be overreacting, but hey, just look what happened to smoking...

* Yes, I have a purple cheesehead with horns on it.
** At one time Duluth had more millionaires per capita than any city in the US.  They all lived along London Road, I think.
*** every man can be ahead of the curve in the same way all the children can be above average.

Calling all friends and heroes

So anyway, the more perceptive among you may notice that I've chosen one of blogger's templates* rather than try to work their comment scheme into the old, custom template. You will also note that my blogroll is gone and will need to be rebuilt. If you wish to be on the new one, help test out the new comment system by leaving your blog URL there so I can re-create that masterpiece...

And Haloscan comments are officially gone, so if you ever said anything you found horribly embarrassing on there, rest assured that it probably cannot be traced back to you anymore. If you said anything clever, insightful, or which the world cannot live without, feel free to say it again.

* least offensive templates, I hope.

Life lesson from Josey Wales

If someone says, "Shoot him now, Abe, shoot him now..."

Don't argue.

UPDATE: It appears Sir Bradley the Chillun may have taken that lesson to heart, as the Vikings looked good, but even more importantly, aggressive, in their 44-7 whooping of the Giants*. Lining up on fourth down in field goal range early, even if it resulted in a penalty, showed that the Vikes meant business**. Playing to score every drive is what they need to do. "Game management" is for fools and Redskins: the objective is to score more points that your opponent, and you do that by scoring, not by strategic punting.

Given that Dallas is up over Philly 17-0 halfway thru the third 24-0 early in the fourth, the Vikings will likely get a bye before they play at home. I don't count on the Saints winning their game in 2 weeks no matter who they play, so the Vikings have a very good shot at playing at home as long as they remain in the playoffs. And they will not play outdoors again this season***.

The one team I don't want them to face in the playoffs is Green Bay. I know the Vikings have owned them twice; that's exactly why I don't want to face them again. I'll take their odds against the Cardinals any day.

* Which despite the TD by the Giants erases in my mind that playoff blowout a few years back. That was the only Vikings game in my life I can remember turning off in the first quarter. I hope Chilly made them watch it every day in practice this week.

** Since I didn't see the game (but "watched" it via java on NFL.com) I can only assume that was what happened on 4th and 1 in the first Q when Kleinsasser jumped offsides. If I'm wrong about that, it would not be the first time.

*** Though sometimes I miss those annual January games against the Rams at Met Stadium. You know, the ones where the guy takes his helmet off and steam rises from his head because it's so cold outside.